10,000 Indian Students Unleash Creativity on Windows at AppFest

Over 10,000 students across India joined hands to create 3000 full apps at the Microsoft Student AppFest, a coding event enabling them to develop their ‘dream app’ ideas alongside professional developers using the latest Microsoft technologies.

The Appfest at Saroj Sadan University of Mumbai, Kalina was inaugurated by Jean-Philippe Courtois, President of Microsoft International. 

 Jon DeVaan, Corporate Vice President, Windows Development at Microsoft said, “Developers are at the center of Microsoft’s success. And India is home to some of the world’s most talented developers. We are focused on enabling developers to succeed as they build the next generation of apps. I can’t wait to see some of these apps being built at the Windows Appfest.”

With the participation of 250 students from each college across India, the response amounts to over 60,000 collective hours of coding. An estimated 3,000 full apps were imagined and created during the one-day code-a-thon.

The goal of the event was to ignite the imagination of students from colleges representing the full spectra of Indian academia by offering the chance to design the perfect app with guidance from professional developers. 

Young tech-enthusiasts were given the freedom of casting their app-vision on the latest Windows 8 and Windows Phone platforms; building, designing and testing bespoke apps geared at phones and tablets while receiving guidance and support from Microsoft mentors, trainers and Student Partners to realize their creation.

Speaking at the AppFest Dr. S S Mantha, Chairman, AICTE, said, “Opportunities like these are the game changers in today’s world. These are the skills that the future generations need to understand and learn in a globally collaborative world.”

Dr. Rajan Welukar Vice-Chancellor, University of Mumbai spoke about the link between both the IT and the education industries, saying, “University of Mumbai is keen in creating competent skills in students as per the need of Government, Industry and other Social Sectors. Conducting workshops on application development for the students by the leading industries thus facilitates them to achieve the expertise required. We are bringing up new specialized courses such as IT infrastructure management in collaboration with industry to bridge the gap between academia and industry. Appfest by Microsoft being conducted across fifty centers in India and being inaugurated here in University of Mumbai will stand as a landmark for achieving the above objectives.”

Participation at the Appfest was from colleges such as IIT Mumbai, Ahmadabad but also saw representatives from a plethora of vibrant academic and engineering colleges from Tier II and Tier III cities.

Lanco Solar Wins IESA Technovation Award

Bangalore:  Lanco Solar Energy, a fully-owned subsidiary of the leading integrated infrastructure conglomerate Lanco Infratech Limited (LITL), has won the prestigious IESA Technovation Award for Most Innovative Product Award 2012. 

The award was presented in the Indian Electronics & Semiconductor Association’s annual event IESA Vision Summit in Bangalore. 

Lanco Solar wins Most Innovative Product Award 2012 from IESA Technovation, Dr. Gary Patton – VP, Semiconductor Research & Development Center, IBM (Left ) , V. Saibaba, CEO Lanco Solar Energy Pvt Ltd (Right).

Lanco Solar Energy won the award for its innovative plug-&-play solar PV product design to cater to off-grid solar solutions in urban and rural hinterlands. Utmost care was given to ensure that the design provides for easy assembly at site in remote locations. The modular design is also fully scalable to cater to a single family rooftop installation to village mini-grids to large urban residential/ industrial rooftops. Several of these installations are operational in Grameen Banks, remote village schools, tribal hostels, rural health centers, and industrial utilities in Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and other States.

Commenting about the award, L Madhusudhan Rao, Executive Chairman, Lanco Infratech Limited, said, “IESA Technovation Award is the recognition of our innovation and focus on continuous improvement in delivery of renewable solutions at affordable cost.”

 V Saibaba, CEO, Lanco Solar said, “The product developed by us is unique and our plug-and-play system for off-grid solar power is one among several such innovative initiatives to take this solution to masses. We appreciate Lanco Solar team for all their efforts in achieving this award. We thank IESA for this privilege and honour”.

Lanco Solar is one of the largest solar power players in the country today with project portfolio of about 400MW, including own projects and third party turnkey EPC services. It has already commissioned

Now select your right car right away

 CarWale, a leading automotive portal for new and used cars, has launched a new version of its car comparison tool that now covers an extensive list of 127 features, which will help buyers to know beyond the obvious with its intelligent ‘hide common features’ and ‘highlight differences’ functionality.

The new additional tool would help buyers to decide the right car. The ‘hide common features’ button allows users to discern only the distinguishing features between two cars/ versions by masking the common features and specifications, according to a top company official.

With the ‘highlight differences' functionality, users can juxtapose up to four shortlisted cars/ versions and glance through the distinct features offered by each. The precise information aggregated by CarWale across all models and trims not only lets users gain a holistic understanding of all the cars under consideration but also pin points the most minor of differences present across multiple variants.

“No longer does comparing two cars means struggling through a long list of incomprehensible data points. We now give you the most exhaustive list of features to compare with the options to hide common offerings or highlighting the dissimilar features. We are glad to simplify car comparison and help informed decision making.” says Mohit Dubey, Co-founder and CEO, CarWale.

Banwari  Lal Sharma, CarWale’s Product & Marketing head said, “We are glad to deliver another world-class product to Indian car buyers. The new car comparison tool manifests our commitment of making car buying simple and follows major upheavals like the radically new CarWale Awards or the revamped CarWale homepage. We’ll yet enhance this tool by adding 10 more data points every week.”